Posted on 01/11/2008 9:43:08 AM PST by Pyro7480
January 11, 2008)--Authorities in North Carolina said late Friday morning pregnant Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach is dead.
They said she’s buried in a shallow grave, for which investigators are now searching.
They identified the suspect in the case as a Marine officer whom she accused of sexually assaulting her.
Police earlier were planning to interview a man who lived with her and said he would answer questions that "will shed a lot of light on the case."
Authorities said again Friday Marine Sgt. Daniel Durham isn't a suspect, but police believe he's the last person to speak with the Marine.
She disappeared Dec. 14 ahead of her expected testimony in a military investigation into her claim a senior officer had sexually assaulted her.
Court documents show the investigation went sour amid inconsistencies in the woman's story and allegations that she's bipolar and a compulsive liar.
Search warrants show she was facing a possible discharge from the service.
Lauterbach was eight months pregnant when she disappeared.
I’m thinking LE is using wife to get more info. So many careless actions were made up to this point (burying someone in the BACKYARD!)....someone’s going to crack, make a mistake, and this whole thing will open right up.
Absolutely they would use the wife to get more info since he’s gone. Does anybody remember reading where the major source of blood was? I don’t think they ever said. Reporting referred to blood spatter on the ceiling and a massive amount of blood on a wall. There was also indication of some blood in the garage. Now, if the two painted the living room first, I would think that’s probably where the crime occurred. Who keeps a crowbar in their living room?
IOW, if the crime occurred in the living room, unless he was carrying around a crowbar for protection from Maria, it would indicate a more premeditative nature vs. crime of passion. If it occurred in the garage, it may lead more to the blind rage/crime of passion theory. Just pondering some theories. I guess they are doing forensics on the suspected murder weapon to find out for sure.
Exactly,
Spontaneously painting the house and garage around Christmas is just bizarre.
One newsie said it was believed the murder had taken place in the garage—I know newsies can say whatever they want, and that their comments, plus a buck, will get you a watered down cup of coffee at the diner, so I don’t know how much I should trust this comment.
Weird - then why bring her to the living room? Bizarre...
I thought the same thing.....who walks around with a tire iron inside?
It sounds very very very planned to me.
Is you have massive amounts of blood on the walls...
Does it wash off so light you could cover it easily?
I would think it would require some time to
A)Clean it all up.
B)Clean up the things you used to clean.
C)Go buy paint.
D)Paint the ceiling AND walls.
E)Hide the body.
F)Dig a pit...unless they already had a pit and he just had to enlarge it....
G)Start a fire that would be unnoticed by neighbors and spouse.
H)Regain composure to seem normal.
That isn’t an hour project. And I assume there would be some stress involved there. How do you hide the stress of killing and covering it up from someone who knows you so well?
IF my husband wanted to paint and appeared to be stressed out I would wonder.
I think (from watching too much Forensics files etc) that blood is hard to clean up so it takes time, effort and some strong cleaner.
At least for me it has (long story, but I cut my finger one TG and you’d have thought we had a massacre)
And the paint, again, painting one room is pretty much an all day job from start to finish, unless he just painted the offending walls, but you have to match paint perfectly then.
So yea, all the cleaning, prepping, painting, digging, burnign would have seemed extremely odd.
From other crime stories, we know that often they like to use bleach to clean it up. Bleach has a strong odor that doesn’t go away quickly, and it discolors things like carpets and wood floors (furniture, etc. also). I would think the house would have fairly REEKED of bleach for some time—and the wife, of all people, would have not only noticed it but also should have been able to figure out what it had been used for.
As to why/how she might have been killed in the garage, yet blood in the living room—maybe it started in the livingroom, and she tried to get away from them—they caught her, dragged her into the garage, then hit her with the crowbar? Just brainstorming, please don’e assume I think that IS what happened, but it seems to be one possibility.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/01/11/missing.marine/?iref=mpstoryview
Tests found the “trace of violent activity in the house” and “evidence of an attempted cleanup,” said Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown.
OR Maria was talking to Christina in the living room when Cesar came in from the garage with a crowbar behind her.
I am off to have lunch at the O-club. Be back later :)
The latest ...
http://wral.com/news/local/story/2316773/
Search Warrant Details Conversation With Wanted Marine’s Wife
Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach
Posted: Today at 9:57 a.m.
Updated: 4 minutes ago
Jacksonville — A day before he was named a suspect in the death of the pregnant Marine he was accused of raping, Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean told his wife he buried her body out of fear, according to a search warrant affidavit returned Thursday.
That conversation took place on Jan. 10 while Christina Laurean and her husband were driving to meet their Jacksonville attorney, the affidavit said, detailing Onslow County sheriff’s investigators’ Jan. 11 conversation with Christina Laurean.
Cesar Laurean also told her that Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach showed up at his home on Dec. 15 to tell him she was leaving Jacksonville and demanded money from Laurean. The two then went to a bus station where he helped her buy a ticket to El Paso, Texas, Christina Laurean told investigators.
Later that night, Lauterbach went back to Cesar Laurean’s house and produced a knife and killed herself, Christina Laurean told investigators, based on her conversation with her husband, the affidavit said.
Investigators believe Lauterbach was killed, despite Cesar Laurean’s claims she committed suicide.
(snip)
Sounds like a bunch of self-serving statements on behalf of both. In my opinion, of course.
I don’t believe that load of hooey from the wife. I know that we are hormonal when pregnant, but give me a break. LOL Heavily pregnant, ready to give birth, buy a ticket to a place where there are no friends, no family, no support, (that we know of) then decide to cut your throat. Ummkay
Wow. So she allowed him to flee without calling authorities earlier. So now she’s saying Maria died in their house at night. Wonder if she worked nights?
Also from your link, the report says authorities think she was killed on the 14th. Wonder why? Maybe the handwriting analysis came back that the note she left at her apartment wasn’t her writing?
If the wife’s story is to be believed, that Maria killed herself on Dec. 15, where was she from Dec. 14 after work through the evening of Dec. 15? Sleeping in her car?
Erm,
now we know she beat herself to death with a tire iron /sarc.
Interesting. Per the Colonel’s Monday press conference, he said that Maria withdrew the $700- on the 14th, and bought the bus ticket on the 15th, in the evening.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,323431,00.html
A witness gave investigators an item that could have been used to kill Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, said Onslow County sheriff’s Captain Rick Sutherland. He declined to say who gave police the item last weekend and what it was.
Perhaps neighbors found a blood-stained tire iron tossed in their yard(?)
If a pregnant woman slashed her throat in front of any normal person, we would call 911. Her life might be speared and that of the unborn child. Even if not, we would not burn them.
Have they determined if the baby was born when he was burned? In either case it was a horrible death for the baby. Cesar is a monster. Hope he gets the death penalty.
I have yet to hear a word from Cesar's family or his wife's family.
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